


and all the birds began their nests

by sweettasteofbitter



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/F, Fanart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-24
Updated: 2017-10-24
Packaged: 2019-01-22 09:31:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12478528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweettasteofbitter/pseuds/sweettasteofbitter
Summary: One grove, one ambassador, one scout. One meeting neither of them will possibly forget.





	and all the birds began their nests

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Iselmyr](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iselmyr/gifts).



> I made the art first and then wanted to come up with a description but that...got out of hand so now there is also fic? Very cheesy fic with lots of flirting that is not necessarily a 1:1 description of the image?
> 
> Thanks to sunspot (unavoidedcrisis) for the beta-help!
> 
> I hope ya'll enjoy this. I know I had fun creating it.

Lace fell in deep, frenzied love with the grove as soon as she entered it.

She was aware of its existence, and had set a fleeting foot on the outskirts while making her way to Skyhold after a long journey back from the Hinterlands, but she hadn’t gazed upon its lush beauty in full before. The entire place was overgrown with flowers in bloom and verdant shrubberies, and between the overarching branches larks and sparrows tittered about. Lace had visited many places, as well as encountered about every climate there was in the southern regions of Thedas, but never had she felt so at peace when surrounded by nature. The sound of the wind playing with the green canopy high above, the smell of the place – everything was wonderful.

She couldn’t let herself become too distracted by nature, however, because she had an appointment with-

Leaves rustled behind her, and she started, her instincts kicking in despite the peacefulness the trees had invoked in her moments before, aiming her bow at the disturbance between the bushes.

“Stop! It is only me!”

Standing there, looking a little out of place with both hands held up into the air and the hem of her light green dress swaying dangerously low above the ground, was Ambassador Montilyet. She was the person who had suggested they meet here in the first place, but Lace wasn’t entirely certain why. Surely it wasn’t urgent, or the Ambassador wouldn’t have allotted the time in her schedule for this trip down the mountain; she would’ve made an appointment in her office instead.

Now, they weren’t strangers: they had communicated by means of letters many times, and when they had met face-to-face, the Ambassador had been nothing but agreeable and lovely. Lace couldn’t help but be biased towards her in her contacts with the Inquisition. After all, Cullen’s name aptly rhymed with sullen, and Sister Leliana unsettled Lace more than a little. No, her contacts with the Ambassador were vastly preferable to those she had had with the other advisors.

Lace lowered her bow, and the Ambassador let out a relieved sound.

“I do apologize for my sudden appearance,” the Ambassador said, stepping forward, her chest heaving a little and her hair in slight disarray. “I wasn’t sure you would come, but I thought we should meet where you are most comfortable.”

Lace looked around. The birds hadn’t stopped their chatter, and critters rushed through the underbrush. It was true that she knew nature and its inhabitants well, but she would be lying if she claimed not to appreciate the safety of Skyhold’s thick, protective walls around her.

“That is…very kind of you, but I feel just as comfortable inside the castle.”

Ambassador Montilyet laughed.

“Ah, well, that is a sentiment I famously share, but it was as proper an excuse as I could come up with to stretch my legs, and since we are both here now and have gained ourselves some privacy, there is something I would like to tell you.”

“Are you alone?” Lace asked, trying to distinguish other figures between the leaves that could listen in on their conversation. “Just checking, you never know.”

The Ambassador looked behind her.

“There is a guard who escorted me down here, but she is well out of hearing range.”

“In that case, go ahead,” Lace nodded, gesturing that she was all ears.

The Ambassador folded her hands together and chose her words carefully.

“You have done excellent work for the Inquisition. Your reports have served us well, and I always look forward to reading them; they are most immersive, and you so very aptly describe the beauty – or the squalor – of the places you visit. Your words make me smile and long for faraway destinations when my duties require me to stay within my office.” She sighed wistfully, momentarily being taken away to said places before raising her chin and looking Lace in the eyes. “However, I didn’t come all the way over here to compliment your correspondence skills.” She paused briefly and smiled. “The point is, the more I read, the more I find myself wanting to get to know you. The woman behind those words.”

Well, that was unexpected, but definitely not undesired. Despite the red heat rushing to her face, Lace didn’t miss a beat.

“So, those flowers were not just courtesy, then?”

“Oh,” the Ambassador covered her mouth with her hand, her veneer of formality cracking, “I’m very sorry to disappoint, but they _were_ , I never intended them to be more than…oh.” She looked around swiftly at the abundance of flowers around them, and took a few steps until she reached a patch of lilies in full bloom.

“Here, let me rectify this,” she said with a bright, confident voice, as she plucked a flower off its stem; she held it close to her chest for a moment, then took a few steps away from the bush and offered the lily to Lace. Her fingers lingered against Lace’s own.

“This is for you,” the Ambassador said softly, and then, gauging, her voice veering even further off the path of audibility: “my lady.”

Lace looked down at the flower in her hand. It was beautiful; the perfect, white-to-red colored petals were soft to the touch and enclosed a scarlet heart.

“Very pretty,” Lace mumbled, holding the gift carefully between her fingers as she turned it up to the sun, letting the sunlight fall down upon the petals.

“You come across so much nature during your travels, yet I was hoping you would like it,” the Ambassador rushed to say.

“Well, yes, the flower is nice too,” Lace said, looking at the Ambassador and flashing a smile.

The Ambassador recoiled slightly, but then her face softened and she let out a brief giggle. To top it off - and to Lace’s utter satisfaction - a fierce blush spread across the other woman’s cheeks.

Lace loved women, loved how they could react to her words, especially as she had no qualms about saying those words in the first place. But there was something endearing about the way the Ambassador reacted, as though she rarely ever heard compliments from women uttered so directly. Lace realized that, given the type of people the Ambassador of the Inquisition spoke to on a daily basis, that was actually likely to be the case. Lace suddenly felt the urge to let her hear all the superlatives she deserved, and maybe those sweet words she _wanted_ to hear.

“Your words,” the Ambassador said, looking at the shoes that peeped out from under the hem of her dress, “are very kind.”

Lace instinctively followed the gaze down at the shoes, but then realized she was paying a lot of attention to how the perfectly sewn dress was clinging to obvious curves. She averted her unruly eyes; there would be time for admiring, later, hopefully, if she took the opening that had been created in the conversation.

“If you talk to me more, you will get to hear more of them, Ambassador.”

“That is an excellent idea, though I think I would prefer it if you called me Josephine.”

“Right, of course,” Lace said quickly. “Let’s do away with the formalities. They never suited me anyway,” she hesitated disclosing her first name, but decided this was of mutual interest. “That said, feel free to call me Lace.”

No eyebrows shooting up. No knowing smirks, no teasing comments.

That was new.

“Lace,” Josephine stretched the single syllable, trying the name on her tongue like a new, unknown flavor. “That is quite an uncommon name, and I like it very much.”

“If you want to thank my mother for coming up with that one, I can give you her address,” Lace said.

“I think it is a little early to be meeting your parents, don’t you think? Perhaps you should invite me to dinner first.”

Now it was Lace’s turn to acquire a shade of fiery red on her face. She tried to hide just how flustered she was getting with Josephine’s witticisms. Somehow she hadn’t anticipated that Josephine would actually flirt back so overtly – yet another way in which people underestimated her, then, as they were known to do. If the two of them ever needed common ground to start from, being underestimated would be it.

“You see, I was hoping _you_ would invite _me_ ,” Lace said. “I mean, I make a great roasted duck that the other scouts seem to appreciate, but somehow I doubt that would be to your tastes.”

Josephine tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. Her nails were short, pristine, with a subtle shine to them.

“In that case, you should be expecting an invitation soon.”

“That,” Lace said, “would be appreciated.”

Josephine looked around her once more.

“I should return to Skyhold,” she said, and made a movement as to turn around, throwing her chin up to the cloudless sky once more and sighing. She seemed to lament that she had to return and could no longer cherish the beautiful weather.

“So should I,” Lace said, even though she made no attempt to move.

They said their goodbyes with elated smiles on their faces. When Josephine was gone, Lace stood there for a few minutes more, surrounded by the grove that had meant nothing to her before, but now contained a very personal memory. She felt light, unconcerned, the beginning of _something_ firmly taking root inside her chest.

She looked at the lily in her hand. Her thumb stroked the velvet petals once more before she tucked it away underneath her plate armor, for safekeeping.

When she returned to the castle, with the late afternoon sun burning on her back and birdsong accompanying her every step, she was pretty sure the grove wasn’t the only thing she had fallen in love with that day.


End file.
